Please Have A Seat ‘Beyonce Think Pieces’

The world, just like myself was taken into a music and PR frenzy when Beyoncé’ dropped her new album last week without any prior publicly or notification and sold over 800,000 digital only copies worldwide on iTunes. Thereby, breaking the industry mode of normal promotional tours and making PR executives nervous that this is becoming a normal trend.

There is much that can be said about the method behind the madness, but the body of work that she produced is what has captured me the most. I’ve been a Beyoncé fan since Destiny’s Child and fell crazy in love, (pun intended) when she began to grace the stage as a solo entertainer.

However, through the years, as I grew into being a “grown” woman, I lost my connection with Bey and began to connect back to artists like Jill Scott and Mary J. Not because I am getting away from the more Pop/R&B, but because I could not connect to Beyoncé; her music did not heal, inspire or relate, and with the release of “I AM… Sasha Fierce” I was officially off the Beyoncé fan wagon.

Now enters…”Beyoncé” her self-titled fifth album where Bey finally addresses all the critics and naysayers, including myself and connects to the raw, seductive, personal side of being a woman and a woman in love. With joy I purchased the album and felt that Bey had arrived to where I was currently in my life… being a “Grown Woman”

But, all the hype and praise have not been positive and I know that you can’t please everyone. However the oversaturated reviews of “Beyoncé Think Pieces” are nauseating to me. First she is not revealing enough… now it’s too much. One particular blog brought me to even write this piece. A blog on the Huffington Post, where the author states:

“My God, it’s as if she turned back the clock 50 years in one moment.”

This statement was in reference to the track titled ‘Drunk In Love’ where Beyoncé and Jay-Z say:

I been drinking… I get so filthy…Eat the cake Anna Mae…”

Now, I can understand that a typical reference to Ike Turner is not normally viewed in a good light; however, as a friend of mine said, “It’s just music people” and if you listen to the whole track it’s a moving, seductive use of word play.

However to credit Bey with setting the women’s movement back 50 years is a bit much. If anything she waited until the perfect timing of being married, to decide to show how a woman drunk in love should be with her man…open, raw, raunchy and real. I feel this so much that I think I will include a copy of this album in every upcoming bridal shower gift I will give in the future.

The embrace of sexuality and freedom that is expressed on her track “Flawless” shows that not only are women equal and girl power reigns supreme, but we are sexually, loving beings. This album is not just a love letter to Jay-Z, but embodies a love letter that all ‘grown’ women should embrace and implement as actions in their lives.